UPDATE: Our AZ Dept of Education investigation
Something very weird happened with our AZ Dept of Education complaint against Dysart High School regarding the missing lockdown drills. I need your help getting answers.
HOW THIS STARTED:
On April 15, I met with Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor to go over student safety concerns regarding the ICE detention center opening less than a mile away. He is also Dysart's Safety Coordinator. Students were scared that the school district and the city weren't prepared to protect them on their way to/from school once it opened. After asking him about safety plans, he informed me there weren't any. This was deeply concerning because we felt Dysart High School already wasn't following basic safety requirements regarding lockdown drills. If they weren't following them now, there was no reason to believe they were going to follow them later when it really mattered.
After months of reaching out to Dysart School District and Dysart's Governing Board and only getting silence in return, we decided to do something about it. On July 21, four former student council members and I filed an official complaint with the AZ Dept of Education regarding our safety concerns, including Dysart's failure to conduct the three required lockdown drills.
THE TIMELINE DOESN’T MAKE SENSE:
Through public records requests and multiple emails, a highly concerning timeline has emerged regarding how this investigation was handled:
- August 25: AZ Dept of Education sent me an email stating they were opening an investigation.
- August 26: The very next day, the AZ Dept of Education told an Arizona Republic reporter that the investigation was already closed and Dysart had been cleared of wrongdoing.
- August 28: Two days later, Dysart responded to the AZ Dept of Education for the first and only time with a general drill summary that lists no dates, no proof that these drills actually happened, and they were counting a drill that wasn't even a real lockdown drill. Dysart didn't even give them the documentation they asked for
How did the AZ Dept of Education clear Dysart School District and close the investigation two days before the district even submitted their response? If it weren’t for the Arizona Republic reporter contacting the AZ Dept of Education, I never would’ve found out about any of this. The AZ Dept of Education didn’t let me know the investigation was closed until September 4th.
WHAT AZ DEPT OF EDUCATION’S OWN RECORDS SHOW:
The AZ Dept of Education confirmed that Dysart's August 28 email is the entire record for this investigation. So what was their August 26 decision based on? They also confirmed that Dysart Governing Board member, Dawn Densmore, is an employee at the AZ Dept of Education. She is a Program Specialist on the School Safety Program department. The same department that received and responded to our complaint. Also, Dawn and Dysart Superintendent John Croteau are both on the AZ Dept of Education Stop-It taskforce.
I am not accusing anyone of anything but, given these relationships and the timeline, it raises the question: was this investigation closed because Dysart actually conducted three lockdown drills or was it closed because Dysart’s leadership used their AZ Dept of Education connections to shut down our complaint? I don't know whether Dawn or the Superintendent had any role in how our complaint was handled. But when a sitting Dysart board member works in the same department that cleared Dysart before Dysart even responded, the public deserves answers. We deserve to know who made the decision to close this investigation, when they made it, and what evidence they relied upon to clear Dysart.
DYSART STILL WON’T RELEASE THE THREE DATES:
I also filed a public records request with Dysart School District for documentation of the three lockdown drills it says it held, including the dates. Dysart gave me the same general drill summary it gave the AZ Dept of Education, told me that releasing the dates of past lockdown drills would be a "security risk", and then closed my request.
The dates of drills that already happened reveal nothing about future drills or how they're run. The only thing they would show is whether the drills happened at all, which the school district doesn't seem to want to share.
WHY THIS MATTERS:
Dysart High School and Dysart Middle School are less than a mile from a potential ICE detention center and a hazardous chemical storage company. Thousands of kids and parents depend on the school district to keep them safe, and the community has a right to know whether it's meeting bare minimum safety requirements. Dysart keeps telling the public it "meets or exceeds state requirements" while refusing to produce anything that backs that up. The harder Dysart fights to keep three dates secret, the more suspicious everything looks.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I FIRST SPOKE UP:
When I first spoke up, Lisa Everett, a candidate currently running for a seat on the Dysart Governing Board, wrote an op-ed in the Surprise Independent (link here) and posted insulting Facebook comments (link here) about me in an effort to protect Mayor Kevin Sartor and the school district from accountability and criticism. At the time, I was only 17 years old and I was Dysart High School's student body vice president with a 4.3 GPA. I also graduated #6 in my class. I was a student leader speaking up about safety concerns, and a candidate running for the same governing board that oversees my school responded by publicly mocking me in order to protect Mayor Sartor and the school district.
Students should be able to criticize the mayor, the City Council, the superintendent, the district, or the governing board without worrying that they'll be publicly attacked by them. When a student raises a safety concern and leaders go after the student instead of the concern, that's a massive failure of leadership.
YESTERDAY THEY CUT MY MICROPHONE OFF:
Yesterday evening I spoke at the Dysart Governing Board meeting. They changed the rules that the public only gets to speak for 90 seconds instead of the original 3 minutes. I've spent months trying to get answers from them and my microphone was cut off at 90 seconds. There were only a total of three speakers. Cutting everyone off after 90 seconds has nothing to do with time. Dysart school district and governing board have no interest in hearing from students, parents, or the public.
PLEASE HELP ME GET ANSWERS:
Please contact Mayor Sartor and Dysart Schools today. Demand that they release the dates of the three lockdown drills conducted at Dysart High School for the 2025-26 school year.
Mayor Kevin Sartor:
623-222-1313 and mayor@surpriseaz.gov
Dysart Unified School District:
Superintendent Dr. John Croteau at 623-876-7002 and super@dysart.org
Dysart Governing Board President Stephen Skvara at 623-876-7891 and stephen.skvara@dysart.org
Also, I will not be voting for Lisa Everett or Dawn Densmore for Dysart Governing Board, and I ask that every Surprise resident does the same.
Thank you,
Cali Overs
_____________________
Follow me on:
_____________________
Please sign and share my 3-mile buffer zone petition to keep ICE detention centers away from K-12 schools at www.3milebuffer.com